1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to determining hydration in an absorbent article or a person.
2. Description of the Related Art
Determining the hydration of a person may be critical to providing proper care to persons who may not be able to care for themselves. Providing proper care may involve providing such persons with sufficient nutrition. Some of the most important nutrients are fluid, for example, water. Water plays a vital role in regulating body temperature, transporting other nutrients and oxygen to cells, removing waste, cushioning joints, protecting organs and tissues, and many other significant biological functions. Therefore, keeping a person well hydrated is vital to maintaining the health of the person.
Determining hydration may be especially critical while caring for newborns who are unable to communicate with a caregiver. For example, it is crucial for a newborn to get sufficient nutrition in the first few weeks to ensure proper development. In the case of breast-feeding babies, mothers have great difficulty in judging whether their babies are receiving sufficient milk. Typically, pediatricians advise parents to monitor the number of diapers that are wetted by the child per day or check the wetness of the child's mucosal membranes to determine whether the child is sufficiently hydrated. In other words, pediatricians rely on the excretion of bodily fluids to determine the hydration of children.
However, current methods only provide a crude estimate of the excretion of bodily fluids, which may not accurately indicate the hydration of a person. Therefore, there is a need not only to determine the amount of fluid output from a person but also a rate of fluid output, which provides a better indication of whether a person is hydrated.
Accordingly, what is needed are methods, systems, and articles of manufacture to measure the amount and the rate of fluid output from a person.